


I Wanna Give It To You

by Fraudgara



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series), Watcher Entertainment RPF
Genre: Accidental Stimulation, Anal Plug, Established Relationship, M/M, Sex Toys, Shame Madej, Size Queen Bergara, Under-negotiated Kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-15
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-23 23:26:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30063162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fraudgara/pseuds/Fraudgara
Summary: It was only once Ryan had stared at the cube-shaped thing for a moment that he realized it was a remote control. It had a tiny screen, an on/off button, another button marked "interval", and + and – buttons labeled "vibration".They hadn’t talked about sex. They hadn’t talked about a lot of stuff. Ryan figured it sort of came with the territory of knowing your best friend in and out and wanting to kiss him so bad your head hurt. Ithadto come with the territory when you knew said best friend wanted the same thing without his ever really opening his mouth to say it.--Or Ryan receives a butt plug for his birthday which gives him an idea of what to give Shane for Christmas.
Relationships: Ryan Bergara/Shane Madej
Comments: 14
Kudos: 72
Collections: Skeptic Believer Book Club Secret Santa





	I Wanna Give It To You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [punk_rock_yuppie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/punk_rock_yuppie/gifts).



> To start with, I have to give a huge shout-out to Erin for their enormous patience waiting for a return on their secret Santa sign-up. My life went up in flames last year and then when I got things sort of back together, the original plot I had in mind did the opposite. I really hope you like this one and once again, I'm so so sorry you had to wait this long.
> 
> Secondly of course, thank you to my cheerleader and beta who over the past 5 months listened to me wail on and off about this and still saw me through to the end. Thank you, uneventfulhouses. You are really the best of the best. 
> 
> Finally, if you see your name or the name of anyone you know personally in the tags, this is not for you to read. Click away. A lot of artistic liberty taken here!

It was as Ryan leaned his weight on his bathroom counter, took a slow inhale, and slid his finger past his rim up to the knuckle, he could practically hear the record scratch and his own soliloquy starting the, “ _Bet you're wondering how I got like this_ …”

There were some days Ryan rolled out of bed, threw on a hat and a t-shirt, and that was him ready for work. However, it was on _this_ day, the day of the Watcher Christmas party and Ryan’s last chance to give Shane his Christmas gift before he went home for the holidays, that found Ryan in his current position at eight in the morning.

It was _embarrassing_ above all, but the truth was he’d gotten out of bed early to contort himself in his bathroom with a brand new tube of lube—panting out anxiety with a hope and a prayer, with his fingers in his ass and a butt plug waiting on the counter because—well, because he would never be happier than when he was making efforts to catch Shane Madej in a bluff.

~

He totally understood it was supposed to be a joke. Ryan had understood that on his thirtieth birthday the moment he’d pulled the box out of the gift bag and saw Shane watching him, eyes squinted, smile behind his hand.

Ryan looked back at him, then back at the matte black box. “What is—is this a vibrator, Shane?” he’d demanded just as Shane dissolved into weak-kneed laughter.

“A butt plug, Ryan,” Shane announced in Ryan’s least favourite of his “I know more than you” tones as his laughter subsided.

Ryan read the words _Bluetooth connectivity remote_ in the middle of a block of text and couldn’t help the laugh that spilled out of him. He opened the box. It was only once he'd stared at the cube-shaped thing for a moment that he realized it was a remote control. It had a tiny screen, an on/off button, another button marked "interval", and + and – buttons labeled "vibration".

They hadn’t talked about sex. They hadn’t talked about a lot of stuff. Ryan figured it sort of came with the territory of knowing your best friend in and out and wanting to kiss him so bad your head hurt. It _had_ to come with the territory when you knew said best friend wanted the same thing without ever really opening his mouth to say it.

Because they hadn’t talked the first time Shane kissed him a month ago. He hadn’t even been given time to _breathe_ , open-mouthed, suddenly engulfed in the taste of Shane like the nearly burnt kernels at the bottom of the bowl between them. One moment, he was registering how close they were and the next, Shane’s tongue was in his mouth and the only sound between them was a hopeful little noise that escaped him under the TV’s blue glare and it was just. _so…_

Even when they broke for air, eyes meeting for a charged, startled moment, Shane had just _looked_ at him. Hope, terror and a whole lot of shattered loneliness echoing the hurting anxious contents of Ryan’s chest like some kind of demented mirror.

And uncharacteristically, aside from the smile Shane responded with to Ryan’s own nervous one, neither of them had _anything_ to say.

Then it was easy. Then they fell too comfortably into it at the time, like they had with everything they did together. From dinners after work, long chats about everything but _them_ , sharing a joint in Ryan’s backyard, those sudden seconds of quiet where they’d look at each other and puzzle wordlessly—aware of something ominous hiding in the textures of an effortless connection that shouldn’t have been. That is, if the Powerball one-percent odds of a white guy from some one-horse village in Illinois being The One for the only Ryan Bergara in the US were anything to go by.

What made it worse was that it _worked_ for them because a few tentative touches and a brave look here and there had glued them together without words. Ryan didn’t want to see a problem with it when there was heaven in Shane’s pink-cheeked silence whenever he opened his mouth for Ryan and wrapped his lips tight around him like he was trying to suck something valuable from inside of him like it was no big deal.

But being in love with your best friend and business partner _was_ a pretty big deal. So big that Ryan guessed they were just _never_ going to talk about it because words came with consequences and it came with the crushing disappointment that they couldn’t, in fact, read each other’s minds.

However, with a brand new vibrating butt plug and a remote for it in his hand on his thirtieth birthday, Ryan came to the resolution that it was time to actually start asking _some_ questions. “So is that your thing? Me putting this in my ass?”

Shane blanched like someone had sucked the saturation from the room. “ _Oh_ , uh…”

Ryan felt heat jumpstart his veins at the resulting breathless silence between them. Something about the fact that Shane actually looked shocked and alarmed that Ryan had questions. Ryan paused, and then, “What’s wrong, Shane?”

Shane shook his head with a look like he’d just started an avalanche. “Nothing’s _wrong_...thought you’d find it funny—I got it as a _joke_ , Ryan.”

There was a special sort of glee that Ryan had only discovered existed when he could make Shane look like that. Shane’s reply said more than enough to Ryan that yeah sure, it was supposed to be a joke, but they had joked about riding off into the sunset together in the middle of 2018. At the turn of Spring 2019, Shane, fed up and hurt to his roots, had stepped into the lobby where Ryan was waiting, looked him in the eye and said, “Guess this is real.”

Which for Shane, Ryan knew, was as good as a heartstopping declaration in public.

“I _realise_ it’s a joke, and you know I like a good joke—”

“You do. I know that about you,” Shane muttered, clearly in a bid to put a speed bump in the conversation as he started to look at the door like it said his name.

“—but like…” Ryan looked down at the box again, tipping the remote back in there so it hit the bottom with a small clatter as it landed against the cushioned butt plug. It didn’t look cheap was the thing; point in fact, it looked to be made of some kind of rubber—silicone. “This clearly cost a lot of money; is there something you wanna tell me?”

He could see Shane’s entire expression shutting down when he looked up at him again. “Shit for the bit, man, you know...hey, you hungry? I can run out and get us a coupla pizzas if you want?”

Ryan followed him to the door, box in hand. There was something on the instructions about the recommended brand of lubricant; something about silicone damage. A google or two would figure out the details, but no web search was gonna give Ryan the answer for why Shane had just stepped into the wrong pair of shoes, quickly kicking Ryan’s off his toe and replacing it as Ryan watched.

“So you’re saying you _don’t_ want me to use this? I can just toss it.”

The words sat between them as Shane tugged a little too hard on the back of his shoe to slide his heel in. “I didn’t say that,” Shane told a space above Ryan’s left ear as he got up to open the door. He fidgeted and cleared his throat. “Do whatever you want.”

“Well, I know _you_ don’t want to use one of these or else you’d have just given me the remote for my birthday. Let me play around a little, unless…you want that for yourself?”

Shane replaced the waxy stricken look with a really startling flush from his ears to his cheeks as he raised a defensive eyebrow and Ryan knew he’d struck a nerve. He gave Ryan a vague, lofty gesture that might have appeared unbothered at any other moment. “I’m getting garlic knots, too,” he announced.

“Shane…”

“Dips!” Shane declared viciously, cleaved in inspiration. “I should get some _dips_ ; nothing like a ranch or a blue cheese—” He had the door open and he wasn’t looking at Ryan at all.

Ryan couldn’t actually believe what he was seeing. “Shane, you can’t give this to me and chicken out as soon as—”

“I’ll just text ya!”

~

So that had been it that night. The conversation was a landmine even when Shane came back, tiptoeing around, still wearing his jacket like he could bolt at any second because what _if_ Ryan got Shane to confess to liking a partner who’d wear a buttplug he could control? He was never shy about the fact that he liked a little torture on Ryan as much as Ryan liked it on him. The thing was that it would mean Ryan would have needed to try it _that night_ and the truth was he wasn’t exactly ready to improvise when it came to his ass.

The logistics notwithstanding, this would be a whole lot of different. The problem with not talking about sex with someone you were so attracted to was that It just kind of _happened_. They both had two hands and a mouth, and it got the job done. If over-the-clothes fumbling had a loyalty card, Ryan was entitled to a few more nights barely registering _Mission Impossible_ on the screen with Shane rubbing himself in keen rhythms against Ryan’s own fully-clothed erection. Ryan definitely _liked_ Shane’s body; liked so many things about how it felt, but the closest they’d got to penetration was the time they’d shared a shower and Shane had gone rogue with the slickness of soap, grinding the shaft of his dick between Ryan’s cheeks while sluices of quickly cooling water poured on their skin. And the closest they’d got to conversation about _that_ was Shane murmuring a softly-spoken and breathless, “You good?” and Ryan, having come so hard that his legs were shaking, had just nodded with his cheek pressed to the steam-soaked tile.

So if Ryan was going to inspire something new and strange between them—and if asking Shane kept making him flee the scene like a terrified lava lamp on legs turning every shade of red—then maybe it would have to be like surgery. He would have to grant Shane permission to try out a kink on him without making Shane feel like he had to answer for some crime. And the bonus was, well, Ryan kind of really wanted to know what it felt like to get fucked in the ass.

He’d watched videos before obviously. His initial curiosity about men and “how it worked” as a teen had given him enough insight. However, then ten years of repression and dating women exclusively, learning the mechanics of heterosexual penetrative sex with said women; then getting saturated by every medium that supported the illusion of it being “easy” and “natural” had made him unable to quell the idea that being attracted to someone with a dick was like waking up and realising he was joining the Navy Seals.

So while he could idealistically jerk off to the sight of a muscled specimen being pounded from behind and think of the figures on the screen as stand-ins for some hypothetical he could have with Shane, he wasn’t sure if Shane wanted that or the opposite. And Ryan wouldn’t know how to make _that_ happen either!

So it was Ryan’s VPN working overtime as he searched for videos that were more instructional than kink and the further down the hole he went, the harder it got to keep pretending the figures on the screen were doing something scholastic. There was a prostate stimulation video where a muscled, oiled, brown-eyed switch sobbed as he came three times and Ryan may have watched that one at least as many times, once with his hand on his dick. He took note of one dude who started off splayed on the bed, knees bent up as he simply ran wet fingers over his rim for a good minute before plunging his fingers inward. He caught himself reading the lines of the guy’s face, watching for any sort of pain or terror.

Because it was all he could think of when he thought of pressing the black silicone point of that thing up inside himself. The pain. The Cronenberg event. Body horror always made Ryan a little faint.

So he prepped that week. Made an evening of it; he didn’t smoke a whole bowl, but he managed half a joint before his shower after which he sank into his mattress, kicking his towel off. The excitement of trying it was warring with the number of times he kept thinking that he might hate it.

His muscles felt like milk as he angled himself in view of the mirrors over his closet. If he couldn’t commit to keeping the thing in there, he at least wanted to know how it looked. Maybe if he liked doing it to himself, he’d give Shane a show, watch him try his damndest not to show he loved it. It was like the newness of being with another man was part of the terror and mystery that came of a honeymoon phase. As if that in and of itself might be one of Ryan’s turn-ons, arousal spiked down his stomach and it was the slow lick that reverberated in his cock mainly because he was high, but also because it reminded him of the first time he’d put Shane in his mouth, that very first testing-waters summer afternoon on Shane’s apartment balcony. Shrouded only by the shade Shane had built to block out the sun, but if anyone craned their neck enough, they’d see Ryan tucked between his legs.

It hadn’t mattered at the time. It was a hot sweltering day and Ryan had brought over some mason jars of artisanal ice cream from a place over on Westwood and Shane had mourned the fact that Ryan had taken pistachio for himself and Shane had been given boring old birthday cake flavour. Ryan remembered snapping something to the effect of Shane being ungrateful and greedy and undeserving of a taste of Ryan’s.

Shane had done something then which, at the time, had seemed like such a petulant thing. He’d reached out, slipped fingers around Ryan’s neck delicately—so gently there wasn’t any imperative in it but a touch that kind of made Ryan’s knees go to jelly when he leaned forward triumphantly. It was how Shane had kissed the pistachio out of his mouth, acting like Ryan’s discarded mason jar on the window sill was out of reach.

Ryan remembered how cold Shane’s lips had been from the ice cream, how the rest of him was salt-damp and hot but Ryan mouthed down his naked-to-the air chest until he was on his knees, breathing across the dusky hairs on Shane’s shorts band. It wasn’t so much the act of trying it that first time, it was the fact that Shane was shaking a little. Scared of things Ryan would never know about until he pried and pried; maybe of being seen; or that Ryan knew he wanted it; or just of the fact that Ryan really managed to put the whole thing in his mouth right away. Beginner’s enthusiasm made him gag so hard, Shane’s cock slid out of his throat like it was pulled. Ryan’s eyes watered but he knew how _he_ liked it so he figured Shane wouldn’t complain if he let his tongue bathe the underside while he caught his breath, got him perfectly slathered with his mouth before pushing the head against his soft palate again until his throat protested.

Shane’s hips had snapped the head of his cock even deeper, banked it over the back of Ryan’s tongue and shaking, long fingers corded against the hair at the back of Ryan’s head, coaxing him to _look up._ And that was it. Ryan flickered a bleary gaze up at the sunstruck and bright shadows-covered features of his best friend, brown eyes prismed with sunset, mouth slack with wonder at him. The act, so twisted and unformed by the fact that Ryan had never thought he wanted any dick in his mouth for any reason before all this, made him feel a stirring kind of wonder. Because it was as Shane accidentally hit the back of his head on the window sill and flinched when Ryan took a chance again and let Shane fuck his mouth, slack-jawed, knowing the aching wet sound of Shane trying to breach his throat was what he was clearly about, Ryan knew he wanted to try _everything_ , be everything to put that look on Shane’s face again.

Even if he had to spook it out of him, maybe.

Ryan, now spread-eagle on his bed, had massaged the lower ridges of skin pressing two lube-covered fingers side to side and he was beginning to respond to it. He could see how hooded his eyes were in the mirror as he slowly, gingerly let the tip of his middle finger press in, responding to the way his hips were starting to rise up along the touch. He sucked his lip in, trying to stay focused and not touch his dick as he got in past the knuckle and felt a weak protest of pain. He poured more lube on his palm and let it slide down the valleys of his fingers and went even slower, anchoring himself by his ankles before trying again.

It wasn’t the pressure that did him in; it was the friction. He started a rhythm, pushing his fingers in harder; faster and he felt a fever rush up his lungs as he grit his teeth, suddenly found in a sweet rush of pleasure. It helped that he was stoned because his body responded quicker than his brain could ruin it. He could feel his own fingers brush along his rough circle of skin and he registered it slowly enough that by the time he was finger-fucking himself, he was in blistering ecstasy. His knees were at his shoulders as he started to rock against his fingers, gasping surprise when his nerves sizzled, sending a lucid shiver all the way through him. He was at three fingers, thinking helplessly of the weight and size of Shane in his mouth, the way it’d feel to have someone really _need_ the hot space where his fingers were, to try to crush inside him.

Ryan unconsciously spread his fingers at the knuckle as he pictured Shane’s grip that time in the shower, gripping him at the thighs, teeth clenched on the skin of his throat, feeding a blissed out agony on his first thrust.

Ryan came with a filthy little shudder and bit his tongue hard enough to sting.

Well. He was _definitely_ a fan.

~

Ultimately, he was up earlier than usual on the day of their company Christmas party not just because he had something to prove but because he was harbouring a discovery about himself he really hoped Shane would appreciate.

He hadn’t _really_ practiced with the butt plug himself (procrastination manifested by fear, being the operative concept) so the act of putting it in was tricky that morning in the bathroom and it wasn’t quite like playing with himself using his fingers. The scary part was going to be standing there with it fully seated inside him and testing what it felt like.

It was when he was holding the remote in his hand, feeling oddly more exposed with the base of the plug pressed too neatly—too form-fitting—inside him, that he knew he’d locked in a core memory here.

It was just the fucking tip. Ryan let out a seething breath. It wasn’t pliant like his fingers; it was really stiff and considerably thicker, and then the way he had to twist it inward, slowly, made his vision go oddly crackly on the edges as the cool stickiness of the lube flooded around where it ended and he began. It felt like it had odd ridges which made him shudder when each rung widened him as it went in deeper.

It seemed it’d never end; he kept waiting for it to hurt, which made it all the more startling when he felt the smooth touch of its friction. There was a little pain, but the ache was good and focused in one spot as his skin warmed the thing. He gripped the counter and exhaled loud and slow, his eyes sliding shut as he tried very hard not to think too hard about what it might be like if Shane had put it in him himself.

He stared down at the remote before gritting his teeth and hitting the “low” setting. It was startling; not quite the electrical shock he expected. A terribly frustrating and warming buzz thrumming through his middle. Yeah, he could do this. It was going to be hot enough for him to let Shane know he was deeply into it, but not enough that it broke some kind of human resources protocol.

The intent was not to go into work rocking a very merry boner.

So there was a problem in and of itself. By the time Ryan had his jeans on and was ambling out his door to his car, he had realised something very sophisticated about the situation. He wasn’t exactly _hard_ , as it were. He just felt kind of switched on; like someone had taken hold of a dial on his skin sensitivity and twisted up to maximum. The cooler air of mid-winter LA drove a chill unlike any he’d ever felt down the collar of his t-shirt. His nipples felt tender, oddly perceptive to the cotton of his shirt. The problem was that while having this thing in him didn’t have him all the way aroused, per se, he was most definitely equipped and on the verge, about to be.

There was _nothing_ sexy about LA traffic and sitting kind of quieted the effect of the touch of the butt plug’s base when he sat forward against the wheel. It was sort of novel to work out a balance to living a day like this; a bit like a kind of muscle training. A strain on whatever muscle it took to keep from getting fully erect while he was listening to Taylor Swift on the radio.

~

When Ryan got to the office, he saw that Steven had enlisted Brittney to decorate with him because, in Ryan’s firm opinion, he probably didn’t know what being festive looked like to the average human. Brittney had come through with gold and white garlands, little Santas on their whiteboard and an even more exciting, snack-laden table in front of where their couch usually was.

And of course it wasn’t until Ryan walked over to his desk like it was any other day, and Anthony—on his way over to the espresso machine, looking oddly cool in an ugly Christmas sweater—clapped him on the back by way of being festive that Ryan realised he’d made a huge mistake. It wasn’t just the contact; it was the heat. Ryan was so warm; he’d put on a light cardigan over his t-shirt and was trying not to sweat through it. He was flushed and his skin was starting to itch all over. Ryan tried not to duck away when it happened and only managed a hearty laugh for no goddamn reason. Only Katie, Brittney, Stephen, TJ, Matt, and Steven were there so far but it felt like there were people everywhere and his skin was sensitive, all the little hairs sticking up as if hungry for the brush of another.

He had to focus. He had a plan in mind to last until gift-opening right after Steven’s last meeting before the holidays and right after drinks. They were doing anonymous stocking-stuffers and Ryan had his tote bag full of tiny gifts for the other employees and Steven along with the unwrapped remote. Ryan’s current mission was getting the remote into Shane’s stocking while making it as seamless as possible before Shane showed up or someone noted how all of his gifts were wrapped badly. Worst of all, before anyone noted that Ryan was slipping an unwrapped device into Shane’s and could make a nasty guess.

The hurdle to this mission was that the stockings were at the front of the room and even worse, when he walked over to them quietly, he was suddenly accosted with a hand on his arm. It felt like his body had been asleep, pins and needles threatening to tangle up his nerves in white noise but the grip on his arm was like a sucker punch. His skin suddenly felt like it was going to spill him open; he was so swept up like this, it was too much of an issue. He gasped way too loud to be normal about it.

He laughed high and nervously about it afterwards, and tried to play it off as if he was taking a deep breath to sigh as he looked up into the eyes of Steven Lim.

“What are you doing?”

Steven was wearing Rudolph antlers with lights in them (clearly Brittney’s handiwork) and a bright red cardigan; he looked like a fixture from a Times Square Christmas Eve display, but the frown he had fixed on Ryan was more December 10th.

“Just giving my gifts,” Ryan muttered. “Please let go of my arm.”

“You look like you’re trying to steal from the federal reserve. You’re acting weird. You better not peek at your stocking,” he snapped half-jokingly, teetering the scale to more serious than he wanted to convey. Ryan almost shuddered when Steven wrapped an arm around his shoulders companionably. “Do I need to supervise you?”

Ryan’s stomach dropped. Some of the others were looking at them. “Why would I peek at my stocking? I'm not a kid.”

“I disagree,” Steven asserted coolly. “Actually, you know what? I’m gonna supervise.”

Ryan couldn’t tell if he was joking anymore. It didn’t matter. Steven’s warm long body was crowding Ryan like he was playing defense on the court. Badly. Too many _hands_.

“Well, now you’re gonna see _your_ gift, which isn’t fair,” Ryan protested weakly, almost hysterically laughing when Steven made a smiling grab for his tote bag of gifts which meant he had an arm around Ryan’s middle. Ryan really did shudder then and he almost bit his tongue. He was now stooped over Stephen Castro’s desk with Steven “No Boundaries” Lim tucked up against him. Ryan very quickly— _too_ quickly registered every point of contact they were making from thigh to groin to Ryan’s precarious situation he was trying to keep pressure off of.

It wasn’t even Steven’s fault. They did this. They had _fun_. Whatever the concept of love languages meant, Steven’s was making sure Ryan knew he cared more than anyone else about the newest pedantic thing they were gonna be arguing over by being in Ryan’s space. He knew to push buttons and be a pest in ways Shane was too sweet for.

“Don’t worry, I’ll just shut my eyes when you get to mine.”

Ryan was sure Steven hadn’t meant to say that in such a low tone, a breathless sort of promise on the shell of his ear. Katie and TJ were laughing, now looking on and Matt said something to the effect of “ _Shane’s gonna love this_ ,” which preceded the sound of his camera sound-effect going off.

“This is so stupid!” Ryan felt like he was coming down with a fever now. As if every shift in his stress level burned him that much more because of the precarious state of his body. It wasn’t even just where Steven was pressing. It was how hyper aware Ryan felt of Steven’s scent. Spicy like chai in his sweat and the mingled smell of laundry soap and body wash. Why was he so warm? Ryan was stronger than Steven easily on his best day but he felt so exposed and oddly like his head was getting light, as he tried to twist away from him. He couldn’t really deny the fact that this must look hilarious, and his confirmation of that fact came in the form of Shane walking in right then and uttering an incredulous laugh.

“What’s...going on?”

Katie was wiping tears away with the back of her wrist as she sighed on the tailend of laughing at them and Matt had apparently elected to start filming now. Shane was by the door, looking more than amused at what must have been the sight of Ryan and Steven practically against Stephen’s desk mid-struggle, arms wrapped tight around each other. They were practically prom-posing.

Shane, however, looked like morning coffee used to feel like to Ryan with his fresh-shaven face and long brown hair scooped back in a ponytail. He had dressed for Christmas as well, a green scarf/ascot tied at his throat over his deeper bottle green button-down under his mustard yellow sports jacket. He walked over and _then_ Ryan was worried about him seeing the remote, so he twisted out of Steven’s grip in a much more serious, violent way that made Steven drop his arms and raise hands in surrender. Then all Ryan felt was a fresh relief at the coolness of his receding touch. His head was spinning and Shane was walking over to him. He was _panting_. This was a nightmare.

Ryan tried to joke his way to the front of the room as he waved Shane away from him, despite being alarmingly out of breath. “I was just going about my business, being a generous person, bequeathing my gifts when _Charles Oakley_ over here tried to put me in a chokehold.”

Shane came up to him, and as if sensing Ryan was distressed rested a cool hand on his shoulder and slid it up to the back of his neck in a seamless, almost artless gesture. “I have no idea who that is,” he stated in the same tone he might have said, “Can I kiss you?”

He _was_ going to kiss Ryan right there and usually that would be fine. A nicely governed good morning gesture that would lock everyone else out for lovely relieving seconds and start Ryan off thinking dreamily of the rest of their day, of the rest of their everything, but today?

Ryan knew if Shane got anywhere near his lips he’d start fucking crying

He batted him away. “I gotta put these gifts in the stockings. I don’t want you guys to see.” He stared Steven down—who very pointedly rolled his eyes and walked away, still smelling confusingly delicious. Shane retreated affably with a soft smile back to his desk.

Ryan caught his breath as he unhooked three of the stockings and laid them on the counter before turning his back to the room. Literally the first thing he did was to hurriedly slip the remote in Shane’s stocking before he spilled the actually wrapped gifts all over the counter in his messy panic. The sound of a smattering of snickers rose behind him.

“Ryan takes secret santa very seriously,” Shane remarked, mockingly in a chiding motherly tone.

He wasn’t going to make it through Steven’s dumb meeting.

~

The meeting _did_ suck, but Ryan was better sitting at his desk, keeping the weight off the flared base of the butt plug as Steven asked one of the accounting team girls—Hayley was it?—to debrief them on budgetary changes for the January reel. He was even able to fully laugh at Steven when he accidentally told their new employee Nicole that he liked her wallpaper in the most wooden way possible that she asked him if he was being sarcastic, which embarrassed Steven badly.

So then it was time for drinks and once he had two gulps of a Corona in him, he felt brave enough to sidle over to Shane in the middle of adding whiskey to his Irish cream cold brew where he reached out and curved a palm over the softest part of his ass to squeeze it. The whiskey bottle slipped clean out of Shane’s hand which, thankfully, was hovering over the sink. The bottle landed fully on its flat base with a loud clang. Ryan ducked his head as he doubled over in a spate of cackles as Shane cursed a faint, “Son of a bitch—”

“I was just coming over to say, better get over there and get your gift. I didn’t wrap it,” he said to Shane in lofty tones.

Shane absently put his mouth over the splash of whiskey on the space between his index and thumb as he looked down at Ryan sardonically. “What’s your hurry? Does it expire?”

Ryan had never had to actually fight himself this hard to keep a surprise under wraps. He wanted to _tell him_. “Guess you could say that.”

Shane’s eyebrows flew up and his mouth twisted into a fond grin as he squinted knowingly, like he was in on whatever joke Ryan was making. Ryan laughed and elbowed him before walking off. Shane was going to get a hold of the remote, know what it was and—well, truth be told, Ryan knew he’d never _actually_ try it, not if he thought Ryan might _actually_ be wearing the butt plug, or that this might all be some kind of prank. No, what was actually going to happen was in a few minutes, he’d get either a text or Shane would corner him during a lull in the party to ask him if he’d used it and Ryan could haul him somewhere private to ask him, pointedly, to push it.

Then they were going to fuck, and that would be the story of their firsts, and maybe; only just maybe it’d open a reservoir of things Shane wanted to ask him for.

Ryan watched Shane from the snack table, watched the back of his head bent over an odd little coffee table book about Chicago heroes Katie had given him. _What else are you into, big guy?_ He thought at him a little smugly. Ryan was into two Coronas and warm, positively _silky_ with the knowledge that he’d probably give Shane anything if he just _asked_.

He felt it like a shiver; the feeling that hit and grew like someone had whispered something cold against the hairs on the back of his neck. It was faint, then it blew up through his center, pooling dark sweet heat like a vicious tickle someplace around his taint. His hand that was holding his Corona clenched and he wasn’t quick enough to catch it slipping through his fingers as beer went all over his fist.

“Woah, what the fuck?” Matt exclaimed, dodging any stray droplets as Ryan turned and gripped the table. Their eyes met and Matt blinked. “You ...you OK?”

Ryan felt the breath hot in his nostrils as he took a slow measured breath. He looked over at Shane, sitting at his desk on his phone. His stocking was lying flat on the desk beside him. He’d probably opened it and was... _actually using it_?

_Fuck._

“I’m all right. I just. Got a cramp,” he mumbled, cracking a forced smile when Matt chuckled.

“Shoulda hydrated, Ryan.”

The hum started again. Ryan was sure Matt would hear it as it quickened, but Matt seemed to have moved on mentally and was now working his way through a handful of cheesies. Ryan didn't think that he'd put it up there very far but it felt like it was trembling all along his insides to touch on a very tender almost _itching_ space behind his perineum. This wasn’t the faint teasing touch of his own fingers; this was targeted; steady, unstopping, _perfect._ Worst of all, it was on a lot higher than the ginger-levels of “low” Ryan had tested it with. Ryan’s knees went to jelly and he shakily set his Corona on the table, gripping the edge of the Costco-grade plastic as he tried furiously not to make a sound.

There was a flip-second where he gauged the distance between Shane whose head was still bent over what was clearly the remote—god, wasn’t he even going to look at Ryan?—and the door to the bathroom. At least with the bathroom, he’d be behind a closed door. He had never felt sweat form so quickly on his temples and his upper lip as he clenched every muscle he could to avoid the quake of thin tenuous skin against the silicone. He could feel the head of his dick brush up the cotton of his boxer-briefs, licking plaintive texture to compete with the tremulous burn making his hips lock his thighs in place.

Maybe he blacked out but the next thing he knew he was on the cold, over-bleached tile of their bathroom with his hand clapped over his mouth while a pained, quavering groan grew out of his lungs, hot and thick. He pressed his forehead to the door he’d just shut behind him. The thing had gone still. Maybe Shane had heard him make his exit and thought that maybe he won.

Wait, won what? If this was a game, Ryan was under the impression that he’d been the only one playing.

Ryan got to his feet unsteadily staggering for the sink. He expected that he looked as bad as he felt, but the man staring back at him was vastly unfamiliar in a different way. His skin was flushed lurid pink from his parted lips up to his cheekbones. His eyes were wide and every light in the bathroom was vividly enhanced, reflected in his irises like pools of melting black. He’d never seen himself like this.

“Oho _boy_ ,” Ryan sighed and dropped his gaze from the man making hooded beckoning eyes at him in the mirror. He switched on the tap, waiting for it to run as icy cold as it was able before he practically shoved his face in his cupped hands full of relieving water.

The arousal faded, slow like a drying patch in the sun. Ryan was beset with the knowledge that maybe Shane had guessed he wanted this before he had even thought of it. And the real kicker was that that was somehow even hotter.

When he stepped back out of the bathroom, he was armed with new resolve. He was gonna beat Shane at this game and last the whole damn party if he had to. This _was_ like joining the Navy Seals; he was amped for a challenge because regardless of how long he held out, he knew he was going to get Shane behind closed doors and make him pay for every ounce of manic arousal he was feeling today.

Then of course, the hum started again. This time at a pulsing rhythm, like Shane had his finger on the levels, revving it soft to low to high in quick merciless sadistic intervals. He was deeply grateful that Matt had started off his playlist on their speakers because the office was bumping with _Vampire’s ...Long Holiday_? or something’s fastest track when Ryan let out a yelp he didn’t know he could make as he nearly knocked over a stack of folded tripods by the door. He caught himself but then reeled backward when the vibration crescendoed. His fingers were tingling; even the cool contact of the desk he was leaning on felt like a groove made especially for him.

This one was going to make him come.

Mortified and distressed, Ryan bailed all thoughts of resolve and bravery. This wasn’t going to work. He didn’t have it in him. It was three-o-five AM at the Sallie House o’ clock; he had to bail.

Shane was nodding his head to the track and drumming a pencil on his knee when Ryan staggered over to him. He looked up curiously, innocently when he saw him approach. “I know which present you got me,” he announced smugly.

“Yeah, no shit, House M.D.,” Ryan growled, planting himself in his chair opposite Shane to scoot closer.

Shane looked politely puzzled in a mannerism deliberately and biologically crafted on the other side of the country to annoy Ryan the most. “No need to be nasty, all of a sudden. Did you not like yours?”

Ryan waved him off. “I haven’t checked my stocking yet.” No more bits. The others were busy trying out the Christmas crackers they’d found in their newly opened PO Box. They had to talk it out before anyone came along to make small talk or lure them into another icebreaker.

“Aww, come on, you gotta go open your gifts—”

Even now he was playing games with Ryan’s head. At least while he was talking to him, he was keeping him distracted from messing with that remote anymore. “Shane, I’m trying to throw in the towel here!” he shout-whispered, bracing his hands over Shane’s wrists in case he got any ideas.

Shane’s placid smile fell almost dramatically. “What, wait, what do you mean?”

“This is me saying that you won this one—” he lowered his voice a pitch, making sure Shane was looking him in the eye. “—I’m into it.”

Shane squinted, staring back at him with chilly amusement. “Into...what?”

Ryan gripped Shane’s wrists tighter. He’d always kind of wondered, a little, where Shane stood on the subject of domination play. Ryan knew fuck-all about the culture. The fact was clear now that Ryan would only be able to play submissive with him if Shane was willing to terrorise it out of him, which? Yet another section of uncharted territory Ryan kind of wanted to dip his toes in, but first. “OK.” He licked his dry lips, swallowing and checking to make sure the others were still distracted. “OK, you want me to say it aloud. I can do that. Easy. _Easy._ I get it—”

Shane tried to wriggle his wrists free and his cool amusement had slipped very quickly into dawning alarm. “Hey, you’re starting to veer from cute manic into scary manic.”

“No, no _no! I can do this._ Shane, I want you to fuck me,” he stated firmly. “You can do it to me anyway you want just please, please, stop using the remote. I don’t think I can take another round. Like, it’s about to get messy down there, I promise you. I’m _good_.”

The speed of colour that flushed Shane’s face was record-breaking. His eyes widened and he cast around the room quickly like there were going to be microphones and reporters closing in on all sides. “ _Ryan_ , what are you—why are you saying this now? And _here_?”

Ryan’s face was blazing hot, a bizarre empathetic response to Shane going fever-hot under his palms and looking like if he had pearls to clutch he just might. What kind of messed up game was this? “Because…” Something didn’t add up. “Because I didn’t think if I gave you the buttplug remote at work you’d actually _use_ it.”

Now Shane looked truly alarmed. “Well, here’s a thing. You haven’t... actually given me a remote of any kind?”

He was just registering the words as they fell out of Shane’s mouth. Like a defibrillator he jolted, mind flipping on like a light to a world of edging heat. It was another kind of being electrocuted and he slid out of his seat, practically chest first into Shane’s lap. Underneath him, Shane jerked and shouted involuntary, almost like he'd been shot. Ryan knew it was because he could _hear_ the vibrator too—it was _loud_ , louder even than their harsh breaths close to each other. Ryan trembled and arched like something had taken him in hand and violently started to jerk him, that or Shane was shaken and could feel the damn thing too, vibrations climbed up his groin and stomach where he'd pressed against Shane. Fuck, that thing was—

“Oh my god,” Shane whispered, then more hysterically. “Oh my _god._ ”

It had stopped. Shane and his eyes met. Fear and startlement echoed on Shane’s face and the sight of it was so jarring that Ryan forgot himself for a moment as Shane helped him back into his chair and he started to laugh. He wasn’t yet sure if it was gonna turn into sobs pretty quick, but the line was there. Shane didn’t laugh, but he suffered a pained, distressed smile for Ryan.

They both turned to look at the front of the room. Ryan was sure everyone else had seen all of that go down.

Once again, thankfully, the music was loud enough that Shane’s shout hadn’t alarmed anyone, though Ryan ploughing into Shane’s stomach was clearly worthy of a disinterested glance from TJ and his wife. It was one of those rare moments Ryan was grateful that Shane and he had carefully cultivated a reputation of getting dumb and rowdy with a few drinks in them. It was why Katie had built production from the ground up on future programming that would probably give Ryan alcohol poisoning.

The thought of Katie made Ryan look at her; she was laughing at Steven gesturing emphatically, clearly making an attempt to act out a conversation he’d had with Ryan himself. It took seconds, only seconds for the fog in his brain thinking about Shane’s hands and Shane’s body to register something he really didn’t dare think about.

“Steven,” Shane said the very moment Ryan thought it and he batted at Ryan’s arm to haul him upright as he stood. “Steven _has it_!”

Ryan stared at the little cubed remote clutched in Steven’s palm as he was talking. He had his thumb over the rubber buttons, hovering at power while Katie was speaking; there was a very clear and horrifying moment as he saw the way Steven’s thumb started to creep for the little knob with a plus sign on it. Ryan was torn between leaping up and running for him to wrench it out of his hands and the risk that he was going to draw attention to himself just as Steven might hit the button, then everyone would _know._

“Shane,” he hissed. “He’s gonna press it; you gotta—”

“Way ahead of ya,” Shane mumbled, jumping to his feet. He crossed the room, displaying an alarming amount of cool as he interrupted their chat, his arms gesturing a faint version of apologies. Steven looked surprisedly from Shane over to Ryan who was inching his chair behind their desks, hands gripping the seat under him. From the divide between their desks and the computer screens, Ryan winced before he realised Shane had slipped an arm around Steven and was guiding him away from the others. He cracked some joke clearly because Katie and Lauren gave him a definitive wry smile and a head-shake.

Ryan couldn’t think. Steven had the remote. Why did he have the remote? Was it when they were in that weird-ass tussle? Had he taken up pick-pocketing? No, that was stupid. Ryan had had it in his hand, had actually slipped it into Shane’s stocking first…or had he?

“Hey, so I was just telling Steven that you wanted to take a walk, just us three? Together?” Shane announced as he came around their desks.

Steven just looked puzzled, and potentially more so when Shane clasped the hand of his that was holding the remote. So now they were holding hands and heading for the door. Ryan jumped to his feet and steered them both.

“We’re going for a walk?... To the bathroom?” Steven asked a little numbly.

Ryan had no explanations that fit. He barricaded the door after them with his whole frame as if Steven was going to try to escape. Well, the two of them crowding him into a small office bathroom would probably have Ryan on that much edge, too, to be honest.

Shane stood a little awkwardly between Ryan and Steven who was looking at the counter like his glasses lenses could detect bacteria. It clearly either did the job or Steven had decided he didn’t care enough because he hiked himself up on it, looking between Shane and him decisively. “Whatever this is, let’s get it over with.”

Ryan, a little surprised at the fatalism in those words, balked at his opportunity to explain. What was he supposed to say?

“It’s just that there was a little mix-up with the gifts. Somehow Ryan gave you a gift that was meant for me.”

Steven’s eyebrows flew up. “Oh, that’s it? I thought you were about to give me some actual bad news.”

“Like what?” Ryan demanded, still poised against the door.

Steven shrugged. “I don’t know. Like your acting phase wasn’t really a phase and you were going to leave us for that director you like so much—” He was gesturing and Ryan’s eyes darted to the hand still clutching the remote. “Steven Spielberg, was it?”

“DON’T!” Ryan yelled seeing his thumb a half an inch too close to the power button again. Steven leapt away, actually curling his knees up in alarm. “What the heck?” he cried while Shane stepped between them quickly, to hold Ryan back with an immense effort.

“The thing in your hand, Steven,” Shane grunted, arms wrapped around Ryan, who was aware he’d flown off the handle, but one more round with that high a vibration was going to treat both Shane and Steven to a sight they’d never forget. “That’s, uh, that’s mine.”

Steven looked down at it, his eyes still wide with alarm at Ryan’s violent leap for him. “This? Aww, I thought Ryan had got me a fidget cube.” He lowered his legs as he looked at it a little wistfully. Ryan was going to lose his entire mind if Shane didn’t let him grab it.

Shane held fast. “I’ll buy you one myself, Steven; just tell me what colour and I’ll get one for you. That...that one I’m particularly attached to.”

Steven shrugged, frowning thoughtfully. “No, it’s OK. It’s not like I can’t buy one myself.” He held it out in his open palm.

Ryan sagged with exhaustion. Relief at last. Shane let him go to reach for it with a rueful little laugh.

“You know, it’s weird,” Steven said, withdrawing his hand suddenly to look down at it. “Actually, if you can find me one like this, then I’ll let you buy one for me.”

“I’ll buy you anything, Steven, please,” Ryan mumbled, unable to help himself.

Steven looked over at him with a rare bemused smile. “It’s pretty big for a fidget cube; probably to fit this big dial on the end.”

Ryan hit the floor. It was like a gunshot had gone off in the tiny bathroom when Steven carelessly and absently rubbed the dial up to ten. He barely registered Shane leaping over to catch at him one moment too late.

He was shuddering, palms plastered to the floor as he panted, clenching his thighs as tight together as he could. Shane’s hands smoothed over his shoulders before Ryan heard him snap, “Turn the dial back!”

“What the—what’s happening to him?”

“Turn. It. Off!” Shane said just as Ryan ground out a weak and desperate, “ _Please stop touching me, Shane_!”

Steven had clearly followed the order because Ryan crumpled out of the fetal ball he’d formed on the floor, sweating and shaking. Shane had given him a wide berth by finally walking over and plucking the remote out of Steven’s hand as Steven stood by the counter, staring at Ryan with real horror as his hands fumbled to get his phone out.

“Should I call an ambulance?” he demanded.

“No, no,” Ryan mumbled, slurring a little. He could feel it every time he moved, just a tortured repeating touch of friction he wanted to rock on all fours for. That was where he was at mentally. The fact that he was on the verge of giving in to reach down and touch himself was only slightly less mortifying than the secondary realisation that he was rock hard in his jeans.

“You looked like you were having a seizure!” Steven’s concerned voice sounded like it was coming from a dream far off even though he had come closer to crouch down by him. “Are you in pain?”

Ryan made the executive decision to remain curled up on the floor, waiting for his heart to stop racing and for an obvious erection to calm the hell down. “I’m _fine._ Just...don’t,” he gasped, raising a hand in a temperate plea for Steven to stay away from him. “Please just don’t use the remote anymore.”

“...Remote?”

Both Ryan and Shane’s silence landed like one of them had stepped on a landmine. Ryan hazarded a slow and teary-eyed peek at Steven kneeling by him. It was cinematic, watching the journey of stark reality bounce over the cogs turning in his head. He stared back at Ryan as his eyebrows started to crush together, then he raised his head to fix a solid stare at Shane who folded his arms and gave a bit of a hapless shrug.

“Is this…” Steven gestured and his tone was flat, like someone had taken a steamer to it, just removed every single inflection. “Is this like a sex thing?”

Ryan shot a sidelong look at Shane towering over them both. He looked back at Ryan blankly in a very clear proclamation that he had no idea what to say. Finally, Ryan sighed long and loud, almost relieved to be saying it as he spoke, “Well, it’s not _not_ a sex thing,” he stated, bracing for the yelling to start.

The yelling never came. Steven got to his feet, delicately dusting off his knees. He picked up his phone off the floor and looked at it with the same temerity a nobleman might have looked at his pocket-watch a century ago. “This...is not relevant during company hours,” he stated in that same flat tone as he breezed past the both of them for the door.

Ryan wasn’t going to apologise. At least not today; after the day he’d had. After what Steven fiddling with that thing had done to him. No, not for _anything_.

Shane was of a different mind however. “This was wildly inappropriate, and it won’t happen again, Steven; I promise.”

Steven had his hand on the door. He paused, appeared to think for a few seconds before he looked down at Ryan, a terrible little look in his eyes. “We’ll talk after the holidays. It’ll give me time to draft up a list of terms, so I don’t slip up and accidentally mention this _hilarious_ story during our first meeting of twenty-twenty-one.”

Ryan gestured emphatically at the door swinging shut where Steven had made his tidy exit. “OK but _that’s_ wildly inappropriate!”

Shane snorted as he stooped down to hold out his hand to help Ryan up. “Don’t worry about that for now; are you all right?”

“I’m pretty sure I’m gonna have nerve damage to my knees!” Ryan snapped, resting his weight on Shane’s arm to stand. He teetered a little, but Shane held him firmly, securely, not quite letting go until Ryan extricated himself. There was a moment there, a communicative pause. Shane’s favourite dialect. Ryan let it sink in a little before he looked Shane in the eye. “You took a Lyft to work, right? Can you drive us to your place?”

Shane looked grateful. “Yeah, I gotta grab my phone. I’ll tell them you’re not feeling well.”

Ryan nodded, backing up a little ways to lean against the sink. He watched Shane lope out of the room. They were going to have to talk about all of it; there was just no way Ryan could imagine silence in a room with Shane anymore if he didn’t have closure about this. He really was ready to give in to this strange side-effect of caring far too much about _them_.

~

Despite his determination to talk once his body was calmed down a little, Ryan was as silent as Shane during the drive home. He kept staring at landmarks, at the spindly edges of Christmas lights streaking their red and green neons as they cruised out of West Hollywood, thinking over and over about the events as they’d unfolded; his own embarrassing mistake and how, in a fit of desperation, in front of God and country, declared to Shane that he wanted to be fucked. That he wanted _Shane_ to fuck him.

Ryan tried to speak, to get a rapport going that wasn’t so damn solemn. He said, “Not gonna lie, when I thought you were using that remote on me like that, I was a little scared of you,” he reported laughingly.

Shane’s shoulders squared as he leaned over the wheel a little, looking stooped and cramped suddenly. “I would never do that,” was all he said.

Something about those words scared Ryan for real.

Getting the car parked, walking for the elevator; all that should really have settled him down some. Perhaps if he’d been doing it alone, but he kept catching himself looking at Shane walking just a little ahead of him, inspired by his proximity to take him in. It was confusing and soothing at the same time. It was nice the way quiet was nice when your head hurt. Confusing because the shape of his frame; all legs and expressive, _startling_ eyes; the small curve at the corner of his mouth where Ryan had one day hung his entire heart on. Ryan felt like he was looking at him for the first time, drunk in the memories of Shane curved under him, teeth gritted and trembling.

The elevator doors closed behind them and Shane shot him a tentative, guarded look. “You’re gonna bore a hole in my back the way you keep staring at me,” he said in his lightest tones. “I know we have to talk about what happened today.”

The elevator hummed as Ryan kept right on staring at him, gripping the metal bar behind him like it was actively stopping him from breaking the space between them. “I don’t even know what to say to you, to be honest,” Ryan replied acerbically. “I _already_ feel like an asshole.”

Shane’s shoulders dropped a fraction as he looked pointedly at the numbers lighting up as they reached the third floor. “I’m sorry for putting you in that position,” he mumbled.

The elevator doors opened and Ryan didn’t move, still gripping the metal bar. “What do you mean? You didn’t put me in any position. What I did today was my decision—”

Shane idled in the doorframe of the elevator and it started to chime a keening little bell. “I just mean...we should have known it wasn't sustainable,” he told the floor around Ryan’s shoes.

There was something about moments like these for Ryan. It was in the speed of devastation sweeping across a really broad open space that contained the few inches between him and the person he wanted most in the world. A crack in the floor like someone had trod hard enough on it that Ryan felt an almost immediate desire to brace himself.

“ _I_ didn’t _know_ that,” he replied mutely. “Did I...do something wrong?”

Shane must have heard it in the tone of that last word because he raised his gaze and properly looked at Ryan, startled and immediately frantic. “That’s not what I meant! I meant that I thought we were doing so good; I was ready to get comfortable hoping we could just— _be_ , but this isn’t a sitcom or a comedy of errors; it wasn’t fun seeing you like that,” he said, embarrassment just on the very top of each word. “How could something this small mean I was ending it when you know what I feel about you?

Ryan found himself not quite able to look away from Shane at all even as the elevator bell kept chiming. Words like that coming from Shane just sounded so… “But I don’t,” he replied quietly. He shouldn’t press it; it already sounded too good to be true. “I don’t really even know what you think of me. At least, not now after all this. What are we doing?”

Shane watched him for a horrible, protracted moment, expression unreadable. Finally, he seemed to come out of it, eyebrows raised. “Hm?” he said, as though Ryan had caught him in an absent moment. Half-hearted acting.

Ryan could feel his fingernails digging in his palms, wrists pressed to the cool steel of the elevator bar; he could feel the heat in his cheeks. He didn’t want to ask; his own assumptions and the ambiguities of Shane’s affections should have been enough, but for all he’d seen and been through today, Ryan felt a little ache of petulance, need and angry selfishness cutting his rationality in two. He wanted words for it, something he could repeat to himself when Shane clammed up. “I said I don’t _know_ what you think we’re doing and what isn’t sustainable about it,” he informed him, trying to keep his gaze back at him steady. “Say it did mean something; what would it mean? To you?”

“Like... _explicitly_?” Shane asked, looking off as though they were once again in a room full of people and they might be overheard.

Ryan frowned. “In whatever _human_ words you know.”

Shane looked back at the ceiling like it had blown a saucy kiss at him and it was all the more awkward of an expression with his brows turned up in a faint pale panic. “I don’t say things like this very well. What I mean is, not to anyone’s face, but it…after all we’ve been through; sometimes I just _want_ you—” He gestured like the act of wanting Ryan involved a lot of flies in the air. “I want so much all the time and I feel like that, and it’s a _lot_ and I don’t know if you are in this to—because it’s easy and it _has_ been, but I always want more and I don’t understand how you would want it like I do. And you look like _that_... like I think about how I want to make you happy—and I want to ask for _everything_ but it always feels like fighting and I just don’t want to have to fight, Ryan. Not with you.”

Somewhere within the field of Shane’s ramblings, Ryan had unclenched from the elevator’s bar. “I don’t want to have to fight either,” he sighed. “And usually we want a lot of the same crap so...so what’s so bad about telling me to my face that you want to—I don’t know—fuck me for example?”

Shane’s eyes were soaked, brimming with a fulsome sort of pleading. “I’m…”

A silence stretched on between them to the point where Ryan was almost sure that Shane was done explaining himself. He braced himself again, ready to doomsday prep for something he never saw coming. He was gonna just call a cab and go home; sort it all out in his head.

 _“Fuck it,”_ Shane broke out vehemently, startling Ryan. _“I’m terrified_ all the time that you’re gonna try the things I want to do with you just out of curiosity and then you’ll hate it and hate _me_ for asking so, even telling you how I feel about you in—in whatever ‘human’ words I know sounds like actual hell.”

“That’s...” Ryan offered softly, his chest full to bursting. Shane saying this much already had absolutely wrecked him, so maybe it’d be too much for him to _hear_ Shane say it; like his heart was teetering on an edge of breaking its surface shell. “It’s OK, but you gotta give me a little something because guessing clearly isn’t working for us.”

Shane nodded, but he looked defeated, arm resting on the elevator door that was clearly protesting. “I care too much about losing you to want you to do anything too challenging for me, and the idea of asking you to…” He gestured vaguely at Ryan as if to indicate the whole matter of the butt plug and their entire relationship in one sweep of his arm. “When you’ve never—I’ve people tell me I was...that I was too much. Physically...and emotionally.”

Ryan’s weight fell back against the wall at that. He looked at Shane’s features and his furtive glances at him. There weren’t very many other implications in the face of that helpless expression wavering on and off. Ryan himself knew that was who he had been to people before: old girlfriends, special people he’d wanted—all a self-loathing roster of those he’d once thought were forever; all who thought he was too much, too...

Shane’s confession was fraught with a different pain, though, and Shane was never melodramatic enough to want to clutter Ryan’s perception of him with spectacle and sentiment. Ryan found everything on him was still; all drowning in a moment of shock and ringing alarm bells saying: _He Cares About Me_!?

“So it’s… like that?” Ryan breathed. _He_ couldn’t even say it now; the words are so stark and palpable.

The elevator chime rang a little louder. Someone was clearly on the ground floor waiting for the thing.

“Shane, if I did everything big only out of curiosity, I’d have tried a butt plug years ago.” Ryan smiled because Shane did, his gaze dropping over the flush of his features. “And you of all people should know that I don’t stick to anything because it’s easy…”

That earned him a full grin, the usual level of shy to be so very open. “All right, all right. Message received.”

Ryan didn’t fully know what this was; he felt like he was soaring; like he’d need to run around the block to deal with the feelings this had put in him. “I like a challenge, Madej,” he quipped, clearing a hard lump in his throat. “I just need requests, man; tell me what you actually want. Do your worst.”

Shane reached out, one long arm and tugged gently at Ryan’s arm, pulling him out of the elevator with him. He seemed to psyche himself up a little before he leaned down, “Well, for now, I want a kiss…” Ryan cackled a little as he slipped his hands up under the inside of Shane’s sport jacket, touched the warm ridges of his ribs. Meanwhile, Shane slid hands down from Ryan’s hips to the curve of his ass. Ryan jumped; there was no way to misunderstand the suggestion–the question–of Shane's fingers pushing against the obstructive fabric; pressure to the parts of him protesting against silicone, re-awakened to something he’d been craving all day.

“Then, in a little bit, if you’re willing to try…” continued Shane; his voice had cracked a bit and he seemed determined to not be embarrassed by it. Ryan tilted his face, nuzzling the soft skin of Shane’s collar bone.

~

Ryan did give him that kiss. He gave him kisses. One thing they’d mastered together with certainty was kissing. Shane was flushed and black-eyed with arousal as he unknotted his scarf, and there was no possible way for Ryan not to touch him. So he did—put a hand flat against his stomach, ran it up his chest and curved it around the nape of his neck, pulled him into a kiss. Shane pushed him against the wall of his entrance hall, crowded into him as Ryan licked into his mouth. It was achingly slow and deep and perfectly, wonderfully right to the point where Ryan couldn't remember any of the awful parts of the day except that he’d been waiting for _this_.

They practically collided with Shane’s bed because Ryan had Shane’s arms trapped in his sport jacket and shirt as he pushed it off his shoulders. When he had hold of the buckle of Shane’s belt, Ryan crossed his legs behind Shane's back and pushed close, just as Shane traced the seam of Ryan’s pants down between his ass cheeks, chased it down all the way to the soft weight of Ryan's balls and paused to circle fingertips against them before following it back up to the taut edges of where the flared base of the buttplug was.

Ryan's thighs tensed around Shane's waist and he intentionally pushed down into the touch, so Shane slid a hand up to the small of Ryan's back, slipped underneath his waistband and over bare skin.

“Oh god…” Ryan whispered, fragile in the feeling that he was actually going to start shaking again. “Oh no…”

“What is it; what’s wrong?” Shane managed; he almost withdrew but Ryan squeezed his thighs tighter around him, afraid of the sound he’d make if Shane stopped touching him.

“Nothing. I just—I’m thinking about your dick, man. Is that why—”

Shane bent his head so his nose pressed down Ryan’s clavicle; he seemed to be taking a measured breath. “I won’t do this if you don’t feel ready, and it’s not that important—.”

“ _No_ , no, I mean,” Ryan hissed, reaching back for Shane’s wrist and coaxing him to keep touching him. He was already so hard it was painful. “I’m excited, Shane; I want you to do it to me so badly that I’m just _really_ embarrassed about it.”

Their laughter was all breath and no sound, and it faded off into further kisses; Ryan could feel Shane’s smile between each one, smoothing a groove of his scruff over Ryan’s jaw. Shane let Ryan sweep his tongue past his teeth as he slid his arms back to undo Ryan’s jeans, the both of them gasping a little when Ryan’s cock brushed his.

Shane then traced the line of Ryan's cock downwards, smoothed the softness and heat of his fingers over Ryan’s scrotum. Stroked along the now naked skin below to the flat base of the butt plug seated deep inside Ryan's body… the plug that had been holding him open felt like nothing to the textured edges of Shane’s exploring fingertips curiously prodding along the stretched skin of his rim around it.

“Can I…” Shane started; then stopped. He sounded hurt almost, fatalistic in some pain Ryan understood only in the seconds he imagined what Shane could physically do to him with his weight; his size.

“Go on.”

Ryan could feel it before it happened because the protruding rubber was so slippery with lube, but the sides of the plug's base were ridged and Shane seemed to easily get a firm hold even so. Shane pulled it back slowly, slowly... Ryan watched him watch it slide out of his body.

Shane went even slower once he'd pulled it back far enough that Ryan could feel the cool nakedness of the rim of his opening, glistening with lube and probably stretched around black rubber.

“Have you…” Shane’s voice came out low; that special little whisper of a tone only Ryan got to hear when Shane was deep in their shared headspace.

Ryan swallowed past the dryness of his throat. “Have I what?”

“Did you fuck yourself with it?” The question came out so muted Ryan couldn’t even fully be sure he hadn’t imagined it.

He shook his head, suddenly sharply aware of the dampness of the curls on his forehead. “Only my fingers,” he mumbled.

Shane leaned down and Ryan accepted the kiss like he was hungry, marveling at how open he felt, like an exposed nerve so that Shane licking into his mouth almost felt like he was fucking him already.

Almost.

“That’s not gonna be enough,” Shane told him. “I need you ready.”

Ryan would always remember the way those words made him shudder, how he had to grip the edge of the mattress to avoid visibly shaking.

Then what followed was the half-gasp, half-moan he made when Shane started to push the plug back in and he sounded like he was being strangled. But then he inhaled deeply, shakily, and collected himself. For the space of several heartbeats, he was able to keep himself silent and still, even when Shane pulled the plug almost all the way out once more and pushed it back in, slowly.

“You good?”

Ryan’s reply sounded like a word he’d once heard in another language, but Shane seemed to understand him.

But then Shane pulled it out and _slammed_ it back in hard and too quickly, and Ryan jerked and twisted and gasped, and suddenly – just like that, from one instant to the next – it was all too much. Too much to take, way too much, and far too much to put words to, because – because Shane was incredible, irresistible, fucking beautiful, and Shane wanted _this_. Wanted Ryan like this.

Shane finally tugged the plug all the way out and dropped it, sinking two easy wet fingers into Ryan instead, dipping wet velvety heat into him. Ryan's gaze felt fever-glazed and he was locked on Shane; his whole body trembling in a way he couldn’t stop. Ryan watched him in the mid-afternoon light through the blinds, how he wet his lips, flickering a tentative, hopeful gaze at him as he began to rub Ryan's stretched sphincter, fingering the slick muscle.

“I think you’re ready for me.”

God, he’d probably meant it to be careful, concerned, gentle, but it sounded like a threat. Ryan actually whimpered and then clenched his teeth, mortified that he didn’t have words. His brain was broken.

“Hurry,” he finally hissed because Shane was disgustingly patient, willing to wait. Ryan brought his hand down to bite at his knuckles when Shane rose up a ways and Ryan saw the dark head of his cock, slick and so much bigger than he remembered seconds ago. “I’m gonna come just thinking about it. _Please._ ”

Shane breathed off a gentle laugh, strangely awed as he held Ryan by the hips, drove his fingers in deeper while the head of his dick played at Ryan’s rim. He could feel the sticky sweaty touch of Shane’s skin as he rocked his hips, not daring to give Ryan the hard thrust he was looking for. Ryan moaned low, frustrated, unable to thrust up with Shane’s hand anchoring him in place, an uncannily brutal grip on his hip bones. He rested his arm against his forehead, making breathless noises, spreading his legs when Shane removed his fingers entirely.

“Oh, fuck you, you fucking fucker.” Ryan said articulately. He didn’t mean it. Well, he did. Sort of.

Shane laughed, a voiceless spate of wheezes and the laugh that came out of Ryan sounded more like a whine.

“I’m sorry,” Shane whispered, his smile pained as he looked down at Ryan, once again in that fatalistic sort of despair. “I’m just—I’m…” Ryan could see it all, there in those seconds. Shane’s sheet of an expression masking a whirlwind of anxieties and failures. Truly and honestly convinced that he was going to be bad at this. It made Ryan hurt for him in a whole other bitter way.

He did it on a whim, so maxed out sexually he needed it. His arm hooked around Shane’s shoulders as he braced himself with his other arm on the mattress, he pulled Shane down on him as he rolled his hips, coaxing Shane to rock with him and he did. Shane’s cock slid inside and it pushed their momentum from a crawl to a collision. It made him drop onto his arms on either side of Ryan’s head and Ryan slid his calves up, hooking Shane in as hard as he could.

Oh, it _did_ hurt, but it was more than the pain. He was stretched already, malleable but Shane’s cock inside him was hot, tense, deeper than anything else. He felt himself close over the head of Shane’s cock, felt how it pushed at the walls of his insides. Clenching his teeth and growling, he couldn’t figure out words to show Shane he loved that. He swore instead and Shane’s angular fingers closed on his ribs, guiding him back until Ryan started to feel impaled, run through. Shane was so thick and it was everything he’d fantasized about.

Ryan couldn’t take the slowness of it; he arched his back until he was as taut as a bow, the top of his shoulders digging into the pillow under him so he could fuck himself on Shane harder than he meant to. He could feel him in his stomach. “Don’t be gentle. Please,” he pleaded. “I want to feel all of you.”

“Jesus, Ryan.” Shane’s fingers squeezed the skin of his ass, pulling him open. Ryan grunted and let the heels of his hands slide across the sheets. Shane groaned and thrust a counterpoint inside him, starting to fuck him so hard Ryan felt his fists curl into the sheet as if to root himself in place. It was like being pummelled, Shane flooding into him, only taking himself out to the head before thrusting in again and starting them once more until the only sound in the room was the crush of their skin. Ryan whimpered with each hit, loving the angle, feeling it brush a spike of pleasure through his every nerve.

He could really _feel_ the throb and stretch of Shane fully sinking inside him. Ryan sobbed, could feel it coiling in his lower belly; an urgent, painful pleasure, leaving him a little lightheaded, his fingers and toes tingling.

When he closed his eyes, a feeling took over like a swoop upward, a weird dance in his head that fought to swallow him whole. The bed seemed to disappear under his back, even under his grip on the edge of the mattress. The only thing he could feel was Shane’s solid arm snaking around him and wrapping up under his spine, just the right sort of constriction, making it hard to breathe in and Ryan arched up hungrily with him. Shane like this made him feel tied back to the surface of the universe.

Ryan realised only seconds after he heard the tail-end of words that Shane was asking him something, a panting barely-vocalised question.

“Wha…?” he gasped, and he was suddenly aware of them wrapped up in each other, aware so much of where they were connected and it floored him suddenly.

"I said tell me if I hurt you," Shane laughed breathlessly and slid his palms over the back of Ryan’s thighs, folding him clean in half. Ryan's teeth clicked together when Shane started ramming into him. Shane slid his hand up his back as he slammed his hips in, and Ryan hit his head against the headboard.

"Fuck—" Ryan sobbed, the word drawn out into a moan. He reached up to brace himself against it, aware that Shane was about to stop and he was so close. He reached a hand down, gripped himself, wrapped it around his own cock, pulling and pushing and rocking them together until Shane started to stiffen

His back scraped across the sheets, and he couldn't help making soft, desperate little noises as he felt it fucked out of him every time Shane plunged into him. He tried to spread his legs wider, sweat cool and slick against the inside of his thighs, but Shane raced to plant his knees outside his, effectively encasing him.

The pain was sharp, bright, unrelenting, and Ryan swallowed a hysterical sound, pushed back, as Shane pinned him to the bed. His lungs were on fire, gulps of air turned into helpless high sounds, knocking the breaths out of him before he could catch them.

Shane's rhythm started to get slow just as Ryan felt it hit him. He must have begged with and without words because the next second fingers curled around him, giving him a snug place to thrust and Ryan wrapped his arms around Shane’s neck shifting his hips to give himself better leverage. The grip was a shade too loose, but the sting of sweat for lube made starbursts behind his eyes and he was already so hot from being teased all fucking day he didn’t care.

He came like that, slick and warm all over long fingers with his whole nervous system knotting up and pulling his head in so many different directions at once until he was forced to just let go and ride it out, moaning loud and wanton.

He felt like he shouted a big mess of things when he came because Shane was able to focus, let him go and he rocked with sharp, jabbing thrusts, making Ryan arch up off the bed with the explosion of oversensitivity, desperate and close to frantic, hands clawing at the sheets with the force of it. He wrung tight against Shane's arms holding him while Shane fucked down and forward. Shane finally bent so his body was plastered along Ryan’s front, pinning him to the mattress, using his arms as leverage as his pattern went disjointed, rocking right through his orgasm.

Ryan dropped back into the pillows when Shane let him go, polite in his effort not to drop his entire weight on him when he was done. Ryan’s thighs were shaking and he felt like he’d crushed something in his pelvic bone, but he was soaked in a trembling relief with cum all over his stomach and Shane warm under his arm.

“Well, definitely a fan of that,” he said, catching his breath, his heart still hammering a painful thrum against his ribs, but he felt like magic. “Can’t believe we wouldn’t have done that if I weren’t such a creative gift-giver,” he teased, knowing Shane would be too tired to retort.

Shane was definitely in recovery, breathing slowly into the mess of pillows above their heads. Ryan looked over at him just as he smiled, his eyelids were heavy and he looked like what Ryan hoped Christmas was going to feel like when it came in a few days.

Shane started laughing almost soundlessly as he turned his face in on the sheets, brown lashes fanned under his sloping eyes. “Can’t believe all I needed was Steven Lim to prep you for me.”

Ryan’s jaw dropped. “What, would you be into that?” he demanded challengingly.

Shane’s expression barely moved as he looked back at Ryan narrowly. “I always did think he had a little crush on you--AHH!”

Ryan, mortified and about to cry laughing, tried viciously to launch a full scale attack with every pillow Shane owned but unfortunately, almost every muscle in his lower body was decommissioned and Shane escaped his untimely death by rolling just a centimetre out of reach.

He imagined Steven and Shane’s faces if he started joking about threesomes. Ryan decided to wait until after Christmas for that. Shane could have this one. As a treat.


End file.
